The present invention relates to seat coverings and in particular, coverings for seats of land motor vehicles of a type which at least locally provides a certain enveloping of the occupant seated therein.
In order to improve the comfort of their users, there is currently a move towards manufacturing seats which at least locally envelop certain parts of the body of the person seated thereon. This is in particular the case with seats for land motor vehicles.
So that an occupant of a so-called "touring" vehicle travelling at a relatively high speed remains firmly "wedged" on his seat when the vehicle takes a bend, there is a tendency towards giving the seat the configuration of a "bucket", drawing inspiration from the solutions adopted for racing vehicles. In order to obtain this configuration, the cushion, the squab and even the headrest are usually equipped with side flanges. It can be seen that the greater the size, and in particular the height, of such flanges as compared with the parts which they enclose of the cushion, the squab and possibly the headrest supporting the occupant, the better this occupant is wedged on his seat.
However, this solution is not without disadvantages, in particular for "touring" vehicles. Indeed, for these vehicles, the cushion of the seat is relatively close to the floor, and this floor is moreover very low owing to the adoption of a minimum ground clearance. It can be understood that it is then relatively inconvenient for an occupant to get into or get out of such a seat even if he manages to find a handhold to help his movement. In an attempt to overcome these types of difficulties, it was conceived to make these flanges movable, in particular the cushion flange closest to the sides of the vehicle, and to arrange for the opening or closing of a door automatically to cause this flange to pivot from an erect position, wedging the occupant, into a retracted position approximately level with the cushion in order to enable him to get into or out of the seat, and vice versa.
Although this type of solution is relatively satisfactory in practical terms, it is nevertheless complex, and hence expensive, and subject to risks of failure.